Adiponectin is an adipocyte specific protein, that has recently been shown to possess a variety of activities including anti-inflammatory, antiatherogenic, preventive for metabolic syndrome, and insulin sensitizing activities. Adiponectin is encoded by a single gene, giving rise to a polypeptide chain of about 30 kilodaltons. In plasma/serum, adiponectin exists in various molecular forms that include monomers, trimer, hexamers, and various combinations thereof. No information is currently known in the art about which specific molecular forms of adiponectin possess which types of activities. While current ELISA methods exist to measure adiponectin levels in human plasma/serum, it is still not possible to accurately and rapidly measure the different adiponectin forms, nor are there useful adiponectin measures that predict the relationship of the levels of specific adiponectin forms to a specific physiologic state or disease. For example, current adiponectin measures include ELISA methods which measure total adiponectin, and do not provide a means of readily predicting the physiologic state based on the levels of adiponectin. Other measures such as velocity sedimentation or gel filtration, which can discriminate between high and low molecular weight adiponectin forms include complicated methods of fractionation on the basis of size, and are not readily amenable to high throughput screening procedures.